Main Menu

Figures

About

Figures is a mass-sculptural performance that makes visible the human cost of austerity and urges action against it.

This page gives an overview of the project. You can find the full project website here.

Using excavated raw river mud and taking up residence on the streets and foreshore of central London, artist-activist Liz Crow sculpted 650 small human figures, each one representing an individual at the sharp end of austerity. With making sessions coinciding with tide times on the nearby Thames, at the incoming tide, the newly-sculpted figures were moved to safety. At each low tide, the artist returned to sculpt more figures, in an endurance ritual that spanned 11 consecutive days and nights in all weathers.

Though made in the same form, each figure differed in its detail, representing both common humanity and the individual. Their number echoed the 650 constituencies throughout which the effects of austerity are felt, as well as the number of MPs whose choices determine the choices of others. As each figure was made, a corresponding narrative was released.

Once dried, the figures toured en masse in a mobile exhibition that visited locations from London to Bristol over five days, the figures making visible the stark human cost of austerity and creating a talking point for members of the public to grapple with the questions raised by the work.

In Bristol, the figures were returned to foreshore and raised into a cairn. A bonfire burned into the night, firing the figures, while their corresponding stories of austerity were read aloud until the returning tide doused the flames. The figures, fired, burned and broken, were reclaimed, gathered and ground down to dust.

In the final phase of the performance and on the first day of the new government’s tenure, the ground remains of the figures were scattered back to water, taken out to sea as a poignant reminder of the human cost of austerity and a call to the international community to take heed.

Rooted in symbolism, ranging across worldwide ‘mud men’ mythology and the cycle of life, the firing and crushing of human aspiration, the bearing witness of the cairn and the dispersal and forgetting of stories of social injustice, Figures is a multi-layered and uncompromising work, yet simple and tender in message.

The 650 stories of people at the sharp end of austerity are drawn from leading-edge research, Parliamentary records and campaigns in the field of social justice. Covering a range of topics, including benefits reform, local authority spending, homelessness, malnutrition, NHS rationing, and so on, they have been selected to represent a spectrum of experience. Volunteer stewards, from campaigning and arts curatorial backgrounds, attended the performance, drawing on these stories and supporting members of the public in conversation about the issues raised by the work.

Timed to coincide with the 2015 UK general election and subsequent newly-formed government, Figures raises profound questions about how we treat each other, what kind of society we want to be, and what role we might each of us have in bringing that about.

Benefits and Work
Subscription service (£19.95/year) for detailed and up-to-date guides on how to make effective claims and appeals.

Counselling & crisis

Samaritans
08457 90 90 90 (UK only)
Email jo@samaritans.org
Samaritans youth project: 020 8692 5228
Confidential helpline open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “Talk to us any time you like, in your own way, and off the record – about whatever’s getting to you… Please don’t suffer alone.” Website lists local branches.

Turn to Me
Online mental health support community, where you can remain anonymous. Valuable resource in times of real crisis and whilst feeling suicidal thoughts.

Campaigns & Resources

Campaigns

The People’s Assembly
A national forum for anti-austerity views to bring together campaigns against cuts and privatisation with trade unionists in a movement for social justice